Nintendo Games & Vintage Super Mario Bros

Retro Nintendo Mario

What Inspired me to write this article you may say? Well, it was a combination of two reasons which I will begin by explaining. Firstly, I was spending some recreational time with a good friend of mine about a week ago when we visited the local traveling fairground, there were the usual con-man 'Knock the Tin Cans Over' and win a prize games. One Set of the Large Prizes included huge Mario & Yoshi dolls which we knew would be impossible to win, but my friend being a dedicated computer game 'nerd' was desperate to try for one of the small Mario dolls, which he was unable to achieve after one go!

My second reason for the Super Mario Bros nostalgia hub is basically because I've seen that they are a popular theme between Hubpage's money maker's and I wanted to include my own unique dedication to the two Plumbing Brother's. Rather than just review a new game which is popular on the Nintendo Wii or Nintendo DS, I decided I have the perfect subject talking about the revival of lates 80's early 90's Nintendo which has literally fallen into my lap and that tends to happen when you are an honest writer looking for niche topics.

Super Mario World - Cup Cakes?

I decided to start of my research for this article by searching around free photo resources such as Flickr because I don't steal other people photograph's I am committed to crediting them. I think people will appreciate this walk down memory lane based on some of the photograph's I found alone! I definitely remember playing the old consoles such as the Nintendo Nes, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and Gameboy because around that time I was in my early teens and my friend was spoiled with everything technological due to being an only child!

Back to the picture above! Cup Cakes, this was the first picture I found when looking for Super Mario Merchandise, It looks as though even caterers are cashing in on the fondness for everything Mario Bros & early 90's console memorabilia! All the characters on these cup cakes are from the original Nintendo Nes game, but it would be nice to see some including Luigi, Toad, Yoshi, Princess & Bowser from the later Nintendo 64 effort which came after the Super Nintendo.

Super Mario 3

Here I displayed one photograph I found of someone wearing a Super Mario 3 T-Shirt which they apparently picked up at a Hot Topic store, I personally would never wear bright yellow, but Hot Topic is well known for it's alternative clothing and since Mario is retro I am not at all surprised the person found it on sale there!. I in fact, only the other day saw a 'Nintendo' branded hooded sweater for sale in Wall-Mart whilst I was shopping in the city of Bristol, U.K. and this also added to my desire to write this hub. I had to ask my friend, 'is 90's Nintendo creeping back in as Subculture Fashion sales pitch?'.

Nintendo Roms - I mean Romance!

Now if you thought Mario Bros Cup Cakes were one thing, this certainly is the Icing on the Cake(pun intended). Here we have the top half of a Mario & Princess Peaches wedding cake!, you can see the base by following the link provided below. I can't imagine what sort of would-be-wife would allow this as their special day desert! I keep having visions of some sort of Comic Book Guy character(The Simpson's) who love's computer games, but having said that it doesn't mean I dislike the cake, I think it is very artistic and it is good for people to do individual things which they enjoy!.

Nintendo Lite or Nintendo Full Sugar?

Here we have the one of a number of Mario Soft Drinks which have been on the market over the years, this one called 'Super Mario Bros - Power Ups' you can still buy online and at selected retail stores. It comes in a 8.4 oz can, the drink is Blueberry/Raspberry flavored unlike other attempts at a Fizzy variety which included the following flavours:

Mario Red can - Punch Flavor

Luigi - Berry Flavor

Princess Toadstool - Cherry

Yoshi - Apple

They only lasted a short time in production since they didn't prove too successful in the USA, however the were a massive hit in Japan probably to do with everything computer game being the latest news in the Far East! If only mother's had got behind this, this version was packed with added Vitamin C!

Nintendo Game for a Watch?

The above photograph shows a miniature Nintendo Game, an incredibly small 'Super Mario World' watch. This game is a stand alone Mario level, reminiscent of the first game we saw on the NES, for an example you can watch the YouTube video I embedded below. It included Headphone's you can plug into a jack in the side for listening to Mario music, apparently it is a lot more complicated than regular 'watch' games, although I am uncertain of the exact release date, it was on display at the Digital Press Museum in Clifton, NJ.

Nintendo i - Eye Candy

Here's a T-shirt I found which is apparently one of the more popular designs, it includes one of the Mushrooms which Mario would collect to give him '1up' or an extra life during the levels to avoid being killed by the patrolling turtles! Notice how it is printed in pixelated form, this is another sign that old technology is making a comeback! Even Graffiti artitsts are getting in on the flavor, producing stencils in pixel form is fairly easy given the straight edges and blocked shapes.

Pixelated '8-Bit' style was so popular that in fact even Pepsi got in on the action, producing this limited edition set of collectable trophies! From the research I have done these were given away as Bottle Tops in Japan only and 30 different ones were available around 3 years ago, they are now selling for around $30-$50 on Ebay.

One character that we don't see much of until later Mario Cart & New Super Mario Brother's games is 'Toad', above I have included some photographs of merchandise which is popular more with female fans of Mario? the keyrings and pillows are definitely a cute addition to any girls style right? common admit it! The other characters in the photograph do not belong to the Nintendo family.

Nintendo Bundle

Nintendo Consoles

To finish the article I have included some photographs of the three main gaming platforms which Nintendo used to make themselves a leader in the home entertainment industry. The NES, SNES & Gameboy are the most sort after Retro consoles which people will buy from Ebay and online just to relive the original gaming experience after so long!

There was something charming about absorbing those brightly coloured Marioesque levels which radiated from the tv screen in my friends living room, and I remember using lots of batteries when for some reason there was no charger for his Gameboy. I think those individually manufactured theme songs and sounds which came from the Streetfighter games could be turned off to save power! Checkout the video below to hear the songs maybe? I can't tell if they are included however since the sound is missing from my PC, Enjoy!